The Rhodesia Information Centre (RIC), also known as the Rhodesian Information Centre, the Rhodesia Information Service, the Flame Lily Centre and the Zimbabwe Information Centre, represented the Rhodesian government in Australia from 1966 to 1980. As Australia did not recognise Rhodesia's independence, it operated on an unofficial basis.
Rhodesia's quasi-diplomatic presence in Australia was initially established in Melbourne during 1966 as the Rhodesian Information Service. This organisation closed the next year, and was replaced with the RIC in Sydney. The centre's activities included lobbying politicians, spreading propaganda supporting white minority rule in Rhodesia and advising Australian businesses on how they could evade the United Nations sanctions that had been imposed on the country. It collaborated with a far-right organisation and a pro-Rhodesia community organisation. These activities, and the centre's presence in Australia, violated United Nations Security Council resolutions, including some that specifically targeted it and the other Rhodesian diplomatic posts. The RIC had little impact, with Australian media coverage of the Rhodesian regime being almost entirely negative and the government's opposition to white minority rule in Rhodesia hardening over time.
While the centre was initially tolerated by the Australian government, its operations became controversial from the early 1970s. The RIC's role in disseminating propaganda was revealed in March 1972, but the government of the day chose to not take any substantive action in response. The Whitlam government that was in power from late 1972 to November 1975 unsuccessfully attempted to force the centre to close on several occasions, with the High Court ruling one of the attempts to have been illegal. In 1977 the Fraser government also attempted to close the RIC, but backed down in the face of a backbench revolt over the issue. The Zimbabwean government shut the centre in May 1980 after the end of white minority rule and later established an official high commission in Australia.
Background
Rhodesian independence
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British colony in Africa which was dominated by the small white minority. In 1964, the population comprised approximately 220,000 Europeans and four million Africans. The black majority was largely excluded from power; for instance, 50 of the 65 seats in the parliament's lower house were reserved for whites. On 11 November 1965 the Southern Rhodesian government led by Prime Minister Ian Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (commonly referred to as UDI) that was illegal under British law, with the colony becoming Rhodesia. The Rhodesian government's decision to declare independence sought to maintain white rule, with the ruling Rhodesian Front party opposing a transition to majority rule as had recently happened in the neighbouring British colonies of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The British government did not recognise Rhodesia's independence, and the United Nations Security Council urged United Nations member countries to not recognise the Rhodesian regime or provide it with any assistance. The United Nations encouraged voluntary trade sanctions against Rhodesia from November 1965, and these began to become mandatory from December 1966. No country ever formally recognised Rhodesia as an independent state, with all regarding UDI as illegal.
The lack of international recognition greatly constrained Rhodesia's ability to operate diplomatic missions in other countries. Only the South African and Portuguese governments were willing to permit Rhodesian diplomats to be stationed in their country. Rhodesian diplomatic missions were maintained in Lisbon, Lourenço Marques in Mozambique, Cape Town and Pretoria. The Rhodesian High Commission in London that had preceded UDI operated until 1969. The British government required the High Commission to limit its activities to providing consular assistance for Rhodesians in the United Kingdom, and banned it from public relations activities as well as promoting trade and migration. The Rhodesian High Commission in Rhodesia House was directed to close by the British government following the 1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, in which white Rhodesians endorsed a proposal for the country to become a republic after the Rhodesian attempt to recognise Queen Elizabeth II as a separate Rhodesian monarch was not recognised internationally. A Rhodesian Information Office was established in Washington, D.C., following UDI and another opened in Paris during 1968; neither was recognised as a diplomatic mission by the host country and the office in Paris was limited to promoting tourism and cultural exchanges. Small Rhodesian representative offices operated semi-clandestinely at various times in Athens, Brussels, Kinshasa, Libreville, Madrid, Munich and Rome; the governments of these countries were aware of the offices but did not formally recognise them.
Australian response to UDI
The Australian government never recognised Rhodesia's independence and opposed white minority rule in the country, but was initially reluctant to take concrete steps against the regime. This reluctance was motivated by support for the white Rhodesian cause among sections of the Australian population. Many Australians felt that the white Rhodesians were 'kith and kin' and were not concerned about the Rhodesian government's racist policies. It took lobbying from the British government for the Australian government to impose trade sanctions on Rhodesia in December 1965. The Australian Trade Commission in the Rhodesian capital of Salisbury was also closed. In line with its view that the Rhodesian government had no legal standing, the Australian government refused to deal directly with it. Messages received from the Rhodesian government did not receive a response.
Despite its overall stance against Rhodesia, the Liberal Party of Australia-Country Party coalition government that was in power at the federal level in Australia until December 1972 provided some diplomatic support for the regime. This included issuing Australian passports to the secretary of the Rhodesian Ministry of External Affairs and the Rhodesian representatives to South Africa and Portugal (all three men were Australian citizens) and abstaining from several United Nations General Assembly resolutions that called for strong action to be taken against Rhodesia. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s the Australian government remained unenthusiastic about further extensions to the trade sanctions and was not active in the Commonwealth's efforts to find a solution to the Rhodesian problem. Enforcement of trade sanctions was also uneven, and was undertaken through regulations rather than stricter measures such as legislation. While imports from Rhodesia to Australia ceased, the quantity of Australian goods exported to Rhodesia increased between 1965 and 1973. In 1970 the Australian government defended the export of wheat to Rhodesia on humanitarian grounds. It claimed that the wheat was needed by Rhodesia's black population, despite their staple food being maize.
Establishment and role
The Rhodesian government did not have a diplomatic presence in Australia prior to UDI. In 1966 it established the Rhodesian Information Service in Melbourne. The service's first director was T.A. Cresswell-George, an Australian citizen. An information office was also opened in Sydney as a branch of the Rhodesian Information Service.
The Rhodesian Information Service in Melbourne was closed in 1967, and replaced with the Rhodesian Information Centre (RIC) in Sydney. The centre was led by Keith Chalmers, a former Rhodesian diplomat. Chalmers had arrived in Australia in 1967 and was granted Australian citizenship in July 1969. The RIC was registered as a business in New South Wales, with the state government being aware from the outset that it was operated by the Rhodesian government.
The director of the centre, Denzil Bradley, claimed in 1972 that its role was to disseminate "factual information about Rhodesia throughout Australia".. In reality, the RIC was a de facto diplomatic mission that represented the Rhodesian government in Australia. This made it the Rhodesian government's main way of engaging with Australians. The information the centre provided was mainly propaganda for the Rhodesian regime. It lobbied members of the federal and state parliaments and advised Australian businesses about how they could evade the sanctions that had been placed on the country. It also handled queries about visas and migration to Rhodesia. The Zimbabwe African National Union, one of the main forces fighting white rule within Rhodesia, alleged in 1978 that the RIC had recruited Australians to fight with the Rhodesian Security Forces. This was denied by the centre's director. The RIC had previously stated in 1977 that Australians who contacted it about enlisting in the Rhodesian Security Forces were told to communicate directly with the relevant organisation in Rhodesia.
Documents stolen from the centre in 1972 indicated that most of its funding came from the Rhodesian Ministry of Information via a Swiss bank account. At this time its director was a Rhodesian who had taken out Australian citizenship, the deputy director was South African and it had one other full-time staff member and an unspecified number of casual employees. Greg Aplin, the director of the RIC from 1977 to 1980, stated in his inaugural speech after being elected to the New South Wales Parliament in 2003, that he had been a diplomat with the Rhodesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was seconded to an information role during his posting to Sydney.
One of the RIC's roles was distributing a periodical entitled The Rhodesian Commentary in Australia and New Zealand. This largely comprised material written in Rhodesia which was favourable to the Rhodesian government. All editions also included a page on the activities of the Rhodesia-Australia Association's branches in each Australian state. One issue of The Rhodesian Commentary claimed that it had a mailing list of 5,500, but this likely included libraries, politicians and other recipients who were sent unsolicited copies.
The Rhodesian Information Centre's activities were illegal. They violated several United Nations Security Council resolutions that banned the Rhodesian regime from engaging in diplomatic activity, as well as regulations made under Australian customs law that prohibited the importation of materials from Rhodesia.
Writing in 1972, the commentator and then-opposition Australian Labor Party staffer Richard V. Hall judged that the centre's attempts to influence Australian politicians and journalists had been "extensive but inept", with media coverage of the Rhodesian regime in Australia being almost entirely negative. A 1977 editorial in The Canberra Times stated that the RIC was "relatively innocuous and mostly ineffective".
Australian responses
1966 to 1972
The Liberal Party of Australia-Country Party coalition government tolerated the RIC. This formed part of the limited diplomatic support it provided to the Rhodesian government. The centre attracted little controversy in Australia in its first years of operations.